Yeah, reality can be depressing as well as exhilarating. One of the reasons for RPGs is to escape to a "place" with less depressing constraints. Just realize that it's essentially certain that, if you dig deep enough, the game world is not logically consistent. Many of us realized this at around 15, the first time we ever asked ourselves "What did the wyvern locked in that 30'x30' room *eat*?" :)

On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 6:36 AM, <tmr0195@comcast.net> wrote:
Hello Phil Pugliese,

I often feel that the discussion are like attending a seminar with a host of prominent people and having the up and down feeling.

Tom Rux


From: "Phil Pugliese (via tml list)" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 3:15:29 AM

Subject: Re: Landing vs hovering (was Re: [TML] What class of Port is this?)


This all reminds of a college physics class I took once.

The prof recommended that we attend a seminar given by a prominent visiting theoretical physicist.

Being the big-time sci-fi buff that I was, I alternated, while listening to his cutting-edge speculations, between, "WOW! COOL!" & "OH, BUMMER!".

--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 8/30/17,  <tmr0195@comcast.net> wrote:

 Subject: Re: Landing vs hovering (was Re: [TML] What class of Port is this?)
 To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2017, 2:36 PM
 
 Hello
 again,
 
 You mean I won't be getting a
 grav belt for Christmas. Boy you sure know how to ruin my
 day.;-)
 
 Tom Rux
 
 From: "C.
 Berry" <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
 To:
 "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 2:07:59
 PM
 Subject: Re: Landing vs hovering
 (was Re: [TML] What class of Port is this?)
 
 We
 find it relatively easy to manipulate magnets because (a)
 they're dipoles, and (b) electricity and magnetism are
 really just two "facets" of a single force,
 electromagnetism. This means you can create magnetic fields
 by moving electric fields by moving magnets (e.g. in a
 generator), or create magnetic fields by moving charged
 particles (e.g., in an electromagnet). Indeed, light itself
 is just a self-propagating oscillation between electric and
 magnetic forces, each inducing the other as it changes.
 It's all qute beautiful, really; Maxwell's famous four
 equationsexpress everything you need to know about
 electromagnetism. In college, I had a tattered and beloved
 t-shirt with the differential formulation of these equations
 on it. :)
 There are three
 other known forces in our Universe; the strong and weak
 nuclear forces, which are responsible for various very
 short-range interactions between particles (e.g. binding
 atomic nuclei together despite the mutual electromagnetic
 repulsion of protons) and gravity. Current theories indicate
 that the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces are
 actually just aspects of a single force, much like
 electricity and magneticism, and that in high enough energy
 regimes they "unify" -- that is, cease to be
 distinct from one another. If this is correct, there are
 really only two forces, EM+strong+weak and
 gravity.
 Gravity seems
 to be very different, as it's not so much "in"
 the universe as it "is" the universe. Gravity is a
 manifestation of the curvature of space-time caused by
 massive objects. One of the great unsolved problems in
 modern physics is "Grand Unification", a single
 theory that would account for all forces in a single
 formulation, similar in spirit to Maxwell's equations.
 Physicists know that our current understandings of General
 Relativity (which explains gravity) and the Standard Model
 (which explains quantum phenomena) are irreconcilable. Each
 makes nonsensical predictions (or fails entirely, with the
 equivalent of dividing by zero) in extreme domains of the
 other. So clearly there is something fundamental we have yet
 to understand. Some "Grand Unified Theory" (or
 GUT, as physicists say) may one day come along that reduces
 to GR or the SM in the appropriate domains, but also
 accounts for the cases we currently can't handle. It
 would be very cool if this happened while I'm still
 alive, as I'm very eager to know the answer.
 :>
 If we succeed in
 unifying the forces, it just may prove to be possible to
 manipulate gravity via the other forces, as we currently
 manipulate magnetism with electricity and vice versa. But
 that's very, very, VERY speculative, and again, given
 the special role gravity plays in the universe, I find it
 unlikely -- however much I really, really want an air-raft
 for my birthday. :>
 On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at
 1:35 PM, <tmr0195@comcast.net>
 wrote:
 Afternoon
 PDT,
 
 I'm admitting to be very light
 in understanding the Conservation Laws which means that my
 view is probably totally out to lunch.
 
 However,
 we have an understanding of how to manipulate magnetic
 fields which has suggested to some scientists and a great
 many science fiction authors that gravity can be manipulated
 using a similar approach.I probably
 oversimplifying how magnetic manipulation works and
 improperly transferring that understanding when trying to
 imagine how gravity manipulation might be
 accomplished.
 Thank
 you the information being provided.
 
 Tom
 Rux
 
 From: "C. Berry"
 <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
 To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2017
 9:28:13 AM
 Subject: Re: Landing vs hovering (was
 Re: [TML] What class of Port is this?)
 
 There are definitely things we don't yet know,
 and technological tricks we don't yet know how to do.
 The thing is, new discoveries and inventions are exceedingly
 unlikely to contradict existing theories. Rather, they will
 make different predictions out at the margins, in conditions
 that we have not yet encountered (or that we have barely
 begun to observe).
 Newton
 and Einstein make a good example here. Einstein's
 theories replaced Newton's, in one sense. Einstein
 provided a much deeper and more comprehensive description of
 the universe than Newton did. But -- and this is the key --
 the two systems are effectively indistinguishable at small
 scales of time, velocity, gravity, and so forth. All of our
 space travel to date has been executed using Newtonian
 mechanics, because it's massively simpler than
 Einsteinian mechanics, and for the purpose of mapping out
 spacecraft trajectories, the difference in the predictions
 of the two theories are so tiny as to be effectively absent.
 There's exactly one case I can think of where General
 Relativity actually does come into play in a practical
 engineering application, and that's GPS; it depends on
 timing so exquisitely precise that the GR-induced difference
 in the rate of time in the satellites compared to the ground
 (thanks to being at different potentials in Earth's
 gravity well) has to be taken into account.
 So when new physics and new tech
 come along, it's exceedingly unlikely that we'll
 throw out things like the main conservation laws; hence the
 skepticism about the EmDrive. Rather, we'll find new
 domains where our existing theories begin to diverge from
 observations, and we'll work out a still more refined
 model of physics that explains those observations, but
 reduces to Einsteinian physics in all the domains in which
 that already worked well.
 On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at
 9:11 AM, <tmr0195@comcast.net>
 wrote:
 Morning
 PDT,
 
 Science fiction is traditionally an
 extrapolation of known science.I agree that there is a lot
 we do not know about gravity. Albert Einstein back in 1916
 predicted the existence of gravity waves. In 2014 an article
 came out stating that scientists had detected gravity waves
 and there have been updates for the past two
 years.
 Gravity waves
 have been included in a number of science fiction novels, I
 think the Lensmen series has technology based on gravity
 waves, unfortunately my books are stored a way in boxes so I
 cannot verify my memory.
 
 We can manipulate magnetic fields as
 proven by magnetic levitation used in high speed trains.
 Again a number of science fiction novels have maglev
 vehicles long before we built the first one.
 
 Extrapolating what we know about
 magnetic manipulation someone applied the knowledge, pushed
 by player comments without a doubt, to contra-gravity and
 reactionless thrusters. The jump drive is also a guess based
 on theories we have not been able to prove about other
 systems like the warp drive.
 
 Most of the science programs I watch
 have commented on what new technologies have done to improve
 our knowledge. Many of the new discoveries have altered what
 we thought was a hard scientific fact.
 
 In
 another thread someone mentioned throwing pixie or fairy
 dust, a lot of technology of today fell into that
 category.
 
 Tom Rux
 
 From:
 "C. Berry" <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
 To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2017
 10:07:30 AM
 Subject: Re: Landing vs hovering (was
 Re: [TML] What class of Port is this?)
 
 And
 that's just it. CG, thruster, and jump power
 requirements are determined by game-design decisions, not by
 physics. None of those technologies are consistent with
 physics as we understand them, so there's no way to do
 any reality-based calculation that will yield a power
 requirement. The Traveller design sequences were reasonably
 well crafted to support the desired background without
 creating glaring consistency problems in typical situations,
 which is more than good enough for a game. It's similar
 to the relationship between video-game physics and real
 physics; if the game feels enough like reality, people can
 immerse themselves in it easily, even if it fails in every
 way to embody key conservation laws and the
 like.
 On Tue, Aug
 29, 2017 at 9:56 AM, <tmr0195@comcast.net>
 wrote:
 Morning
 PDT,
 
 There is more than one Traveller
 design sequence that requires the drive train/suspension to
 have a
 design power requirement.
 
 CT
 Striker Book 3 p. 8, MT Referee's Manual pp. 65-66, TNE
 FF&S Chapter 10, and GURPS Traveller Starships p. 40.
 I'm not sure but I believe that T4 Core Book QSDS, T4
 Book 2 Starships, and T4 book D FF&S have have power
 requirements.
 
 In CT Striker Book 3 p. 8 each .02
 m^3 of grav generator provides 1 ton of thrust and requires
 .1 megawatts of power from the power plant. On p. 11 a grav
 vehicle's requires 1G, determined by dividing the grav
 generators thrust in tons by the vehicles' weight in
 tons, to keep the vehicle in the air, hovering. If the
 thrust is less than 1G the vehicle cannot move, I think this
 means the vehicle is sitting on the ground. Any thrust in
 excess of 1G is used for movement.
 
 Tom
 Rux
 
 From:
 "Tim" <xxxxxx@little-possums.net>
 To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Sent: Monday, August 28, 2017
 8:32:42 PM
 Subject: Re: Landing vs
 hovering (was Re: [TML] What class of Port is
 this?)
 
 On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at
 03:49:12PM -0500, Grimmund wrote:
 > On
 Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 10:00 PM, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net>
 wrote:
 >
 >
 > > Does Traveller contragrav employ a
 means that requires constant power
 > >
 input?  We don't know.
 >
 >
 > That seems to be a
 given.  If it has a power requirement to operate, that
 > implies that lacking such power, it will
 no longer operate.
 
 In one of the vehicle design
 sequences, drivetrain/suspension has a
 design power requirement also.  This does not
 mean that the wheels
 fall off when the power
 is not supplied (i.e. no longer supports the
 vehicle), it just means that without power the
 vehicle won't
 accelerate and that there
 is a limit to how much power it can handle
 without breaking something.
 
 
 - Tim
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